


"Winterfair II: Vorkosigan Plenipotentiary..."

by RogerStenning



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogerStenning/pseuds/RogerStenning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles isn’t an Imperial Auditor this time around...</p><p>(AU set a between the events in “Memory” and “A Civil Campaign”)</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Winterfair II: Vorkosigan Plenipotentiary..."

 

 

 

  **"Winterfair II:  
****Vorkosigan Plenipotentiary...”**

A Vorkosigan FanFic  
By Roger Stenning

Based on the characters, situations, and universe created, set, and owned by  
Lois McMaster Bujold. The contents of this story are for personal, non-commercial  
use only. Any use of Lois McMaster Bujold's copyrighted material or trademarks  
anywhere in this story should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights  
or trademarks. This disclaimer must remain as an integral part of this file.  
The material in this story may be used/abused by other FanFic authors, provided  
that credit is given where credit is due - "Turnabout is fair play"!

Copyright 2011, Roger Stenning.

 

 

 

 

***

_This fic was inspired by the Winterfair Mark Two plot bunny by **Bookchan**_ _:  
“2) A fic where Miles didn't become an Auditor either because Gregor didn't offer him the position full time or because Haroche didn't commit treason. What would Miles have ended up doing?”_

 

***

He'd mulled about this for a while now, ever since he'd been told that that attitude-ridden bloody dwarf would be assigned to him, for him to train up to become his boss. That was pure, unadulterated, poison to the soul. Illyan _had_ to be out of his bloody mind. Allegiance to Count Vorkosigan was one thing, but his son as well? The boy would have to be able to walk on water or something, to instil that kind of faith in Illyan - Haroche froze. _Hold on a bloody moment_. He paused: He’d been about to break the capsule in his fingers, but stopped himself, his eyes narrowing as he considered something that hadn’t occurred to him before that moment.

Illyan wasn't the kind of man to have false illusions about people. He'd sacked, arrested, and vanished more people than he'd had hot dinners, and was practically infallible (well, there _was_ the birthday party he'd never suspected until they threw it at him, but that was the exception, and it had come at the height of the Yarrow Incident, after all). So why the Vorkosigan boy, then?

Lucas Haroche fingered the small brown frangible capsule carefully, then set the unbroken capsule back in the small cotton wool packed matchbox he’d taken it from, placing it in his desk drawer, and locking it there. It could wait. It was past time to do some digging, instead.

After going over the unsecured portions of his files, and noticing the odd configuration of his awards and decorations, he finally figured out that Lieutenant Lord Miles Vorkosigan was no bloody Courier Officer, and finally understood why Illyan thought the boy walked on water.

Then, a fortnight later, the little git blew himself out of the water - almost literally. He was out of ImpSec, for good, on a medical retirement. Illyan always changed the subject when Vorkosigan came up in conversation - no matter how innocently - for the next month.

Then, in almost tragic irony, considering what Lucas had formerly intended to do, a combination of a poor cleaning job, ill-timing, carelessness, and pure bad luck, landed Illyan in the ImpSec infirmary after a horrifying tumble, after he slipped on a wet stair tread tile, bumped into the cleaner turning round to wipe up the spill, and flew head-first down a set of steps towards the canteen, his head colliding with a steel banister at the bottom of the flight. It was all caught on camera, so foul play was definitely out.

It was a pure, clumsy, lousy bloody accident.

It was a minor miracle he was able to function afterwards, let alone breathe, but the damage was done: He'd suffered one hell of a crack to his skull, and it had somehow caused his eidetic chip to become disconnected from his brain; in addition, the crack to the skull had caused swelling to his brain, which exacerbated the injury to the chip, resulting in the chip ‘thinking’ that he'd died, and self-destructing through decomposure, as it was meant to. Before they picked up on this horrid combination of events, Illyan had been through hell about ten times over every hour as his chip fired random events from the past in it's death-throws. Haroche decided on removal of the chip, and that was, as they say, that.

On recovering consciousness, it was found that his intermediate-period-memory was shot to hell, and his short-term memory wasn't far behind. Haroche was immediately appointed Provisional Head of ImpSec, until such time as the Emperor confirmed him in place. Illyan retired to the care of his one-time subordinate, Lord Vorkosigan, and a short while later, rumours started to persist regarding Illyans close association with Lady Alys Vorpatril.

Haroche was confirmed as Chief of ImpSec in due course, and Simon and Lady Vorpatril were confirmed as a couple in the monthly magazine for the proles, "Vortattle", that had a fairly solid following amongst the nobles as well. Miles had, on more than one occasion, spotted a copy on Gregors desk, and wisely kept his big gob shut on the matter.

 

 

***

Miles got bored easily, however. While he'd given his word to Gregor that he'd steer clear of the Dendarii, and he had no intention of breaking his names word to his life-long friend and liege, his not having a proper job rankled; he wasn’t used to being idle and doing nothing at all, and didn’t like it one bit. So, he surveyed his fathers' District and, in his fathers voice, got to work fixing things (some of which really, didn't need fixing, but what the hell. It kept him out of trouble).

And then that idiot Vormoncrief had to open his slimy hole. A Clone wasn't good enough to become a Count's heir, even as the second heir he said, causing one hell of a stir. Quite what his motivation was, no-one quite knew, and it was by grace of God alone that Mark wasn’t on-planet to deliver terminal argument closure in person.

The verbal sparring got quite nasty for a time, with legal threats-a-plenty, until somehow the Soletta Array at Komarr was busted by a colliding freighter, the Komarran deep-space transfer station imploded killing all on board, and Lord Auditor Vorthys niece - now a widower thanks to the transfer stations destruction - arrived back in Vorbarr Sultana. After rebutting several proposals to would-be suitors, the scuttlebutt was all about her for a couple of days, but then the scream sheets got bored, and went back to Miles for their entertainment.

Miles found himself back into his legal and political mess, and suddenly realised that he had a talent for political tactics, as Lady Dona suddenly turned up as Lord Dono, Ivan got roped in to the shenanigans too, and Miles had one hell of a Political Fight (note the capitalisation there) on his mitts.

It was gloriously madcap for a while, in the best traditions of Mad Miles Naismith and His Barrayaran Mercenary Horde (as the tabloids had once called this galactic mercenary and his fleet a few years back), but all good things come to an end, and life slowed down again. During the mess, he’d made and broken alliances, juggled political adversaries like battling star ships, and had a whale of a time. That he’d somehow won every phase of the fight had confused the hell out of him, but he wasn’t arguing.

These victories had made Gregor sit up and take notice; Miles as a _diplomat_ , with no shots fired, even once?! Wow. Gregor decided that Miles could help the Empire as well now, as when he’d been the star of Illyans firmament: He appointed Miles as an Ambassador Plenipotentiary, a post not requiring confirmation from the Council of Counts, and personally briefed him, charging Miles with making Gregors' Galactic life a damn sight easier. on the way out, he bumped into Lady Alys, who was introducing a woman to Gregors’ fiancé, Doctor Laisa Toscane; the visitor turned out to be Ekaterin Vorthys, the niece of Lord Auditor Professor Vorthys.

She’d not backed down to the press: She'd done the opposite, and had gone for the jugular, and in the process, oh yes, neatly disarmed Vormoncrief (who was now it seemed, cooling his jets at Camp Permafrost, pending Court Martial for making not-so-oblique threats of child abduction), and in the process, without intending to, had helped Miles and his friends achieve a hat-trick of victories - Mark officially recognised by the Council of Counts as a Second Heir, Dono approved to succeed his father as Count, and René Vorbretten was reconfirmed as Count in the Council of Counts. Quite a good day, all in all. Oddly for Miles, he found himself strangely smitten with this home-grown spitfire of a woman.

Miles new job was interesting at times, but for the most part, bloody boring. Never the less, he did it to the best of his ability, and gained a galactic reputation as a man who didn't let anything get in his way, as several worlds who tried to put the brakes on the expanding Barrayaran Economic muscles found - to their extreme embarrassment.

During this time, whenever he was back on Barrayar, he found reasons and time to be close to Ekaterin; he found her work for her slowly building Landscaping business; he found a clinic for her son, Nikki, when he found out from Ekaterin that he had Vorzohn's Dystrophy, and paid for the treatment as well; he was a friend of the family, after all, and it seemed appropriate enough, although it got tongues in Vortattle wagging again. She was a little concerned, for Nikki’s sake, but not overly, and Gregor was somewhat protective of his foster-brother; several words in the right places, and Vortattle tattled about them no more.

A few months later, Ekaterin and Miles became engaged. The marriage, courtesy of what was in hindsight a blindingly silly decision, was almost a disaster - they'd discussed having an open-air wedding, and agreed to hold it in the newly-refurbished gardens of Vorkosigan house. What they hadn't, in their enthusiasm, considered in their timeline of events, was that the wedding would take place at the height of winter.

Still, it all came off well enough with no major ructions, save from a group of drunken idiots trying to make Tauras’ life interesting as she jogged around Vorkosigan house one morning, and Roic saving the day and reputation of Barrayar with a series of well placed kicks and punches to the... er... proper places.

Their honeymoon, delayed a few months due to yet another off-planet job from Gregor to his all-purpose Ambassador, was rescheduled. Easy enough to organise, it was a long cruise around various worlds that Barrayar did business with, including Earth, and before long, they were on their way home again, scheduled to ‘uncork’, as Lady Cordelia Vorkosigan once put it, their two incubating children, once they got home again.

Or at least they had been, until they were interrupted by an Imperial Courier with a message from Gregor...

_Fin_

**Author's Note:**

> One of the migrations from LiveJournal, this, and I *still* can't figure out how to stick Guy Allegre in there - you can only have one major accident a decade at ImpSec, or people start shooting on spec :-(
> 
> Oh well. Despite the lack, I hope you enjoyed this :-)


End file.
